In traditional business models, consumers purchased both computing devices and software for execution on the computing devices. Therefore, traditional computing devices were configured for “open” and “general purpose” execution of software desired by the user and not limited, by itself, to execution of particular software. For example, under this traditional business model the consumer may purchase a desktop personal computer (PC) having an operating system that permits execution of a wide range of applications, such as games, word processors, spreadsheets, and so on that may be obtained from a wide range of venders. Therefore, a provider (e.g., manufacturer) of the desktop PC typically used a configuration that enabled the PC to execute as many of these different applications as possible, thereby increasing the functionality available to the consumer and consequently the desirability of the PC to the consumer.
Configuration as a “general purpose” computing device, however, typically limited the computing device to this traditional business model and thus limited sellers of the computing device from availing themselves of other business models. For example, a seller may wish to use a business model in which consumers “pay-as-they-go”. Therefore, in this example, a seller of the computing device may subsidize the initial purchase price of the computing device in order to collect revenue from the user at a later time, such as in the sale of services and/or software to the consumer over a network. However, if the computing device is configured for general purpose execution of software, the consumer may choose to forgo use of the seller's services and instead use a competitor's services, thereby removing the incentive for the seller to subsidize the cost of the computing device.